Evolution of NATO-Ukraine relations
Dialogue and cooperation started when newly independent Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (1991) and the Partnership for Peace programme (1994).
Relations were strengthened with the signing of the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership, and further enhanced in 2009 with the Declaration to Complement the Charter, which reaffirmed the decision by NATO Leaders at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of NATO.
The 1997 Charter established the NATO-Ukraine Commission as the main body responsible for developing the NATO-Ukraine relationship and for directing cooperative activities. In 2023, the Commission was replaced by the NATO-Ukraine Council, where Allies and Ukraine sit as equals. This change demonstrates the strengthening of political ties and Ukraine’s increasing integration with NATO.
Cooperation has deepened over time and is mutually beneficial. Ukraine has a long track record of active contributions to NATO-led operations and missions.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37750.htm
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VILNIUS, July 10 (Reuters) - As NATO nations try to agree on Ukraine’s push for membership at a summit in Vilnius this week, an earlier gathering casts a long shadow.
At a summit in Bucharest in April 2008, NATO declared that both Ukraine and Georgia would join the U.S.-led defence alliance - but gave them no plan for how to get there.
The declaration papered over cracks between the United States, which wanted to admit both countries, and France and Germany, which feared that would antagonise Russia.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/natos-ukraine-debate-still-haunted-by-bucharest-pledge-2023-07-10/
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"The White House’s messaging on the Ukraine war is built around two simple-yet-powerful adjectives: “We are united in our condemnation,” said President Joe Biden almost two years ago in a joint statement with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “of Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.”
The “unjustified and unprovoked” line has been used numerous times by a chorus of top U.S. officials and allies, quickly becoming a rhetorical mainstay of Biden’s maximum pressure campaign against the Kremlin."
An explosive New York Times exposé by Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz sheds light on major developments preceding the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the report, the Ukrainian government entered into a wide-ranging partnership with the CIA against Russia. This cooperation, which involved the establishment of as many as 12 secret CIA “forward operating bases” along Ukraine’s border with Russia, began not with Russia’s 2022 invasion, but just over 10 years ago.
The problem, rather, is one of basic security perceptions. Moscow repeatedly warned — for many years before 2014 — that it was and remains prepared to take drastic action to prevent Ukraine from being used by the West as a forward operating base against Russia. Yet that, as recounted in lurid detail by The New York Times, is precisely what has happened over the past 10 years."
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/cia-ukraine-russia/
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lots of information to unpack. it's a complicated situation and cannot be boiled down to "Putin Bad, USA innocent and good". Like most of international politics there is lots of nuance which does not make for good prime time TV ratings.
my summary: the US has provoked a post cold war russia unnecessarily by pushing nato to the border of russia. a red line that putin has said for decades russia will not stand for. russia is acting as expected and trying to prevent a nato border state...while preserving their black sea access via crimea.
basically russia called nato's bluff. their invasion was not done out of left field for no reason. many on here like to argue that putin is the next hitler and a wild man who must be stopped before he rapes paris. i obviously disagree and think he is a very rational actor.
